 |
| Golden Plover Award finalists 2015 at the Scottish Game Fair (pic: Rob MacDougall) |
It was a busy weekend for the Heather Trust at the Scottish Game Fair, where the finalists for 2015's Golden Plover Award for Moorland Management attended a ceremony hosted by Savills to celebrate the work of this year's winner, Mar Estate.
Last winter, Mar Estate restored an area of 1.95ha of bare peat and 4,530m of eroded
hags and gullies as part of a wider peatland restoration project undertaken by Dr.
Jane Barker of Barker and Bland Ltd, peatland consultants and contractors based
in Cumbria. The work was also greatly supported by Stephen Corcoran of the
Cairngorms National Park Authority.
When presenting the award, GWCT Scotland chairman Andrew Salvesen
said: “The three finalists represented the amazing variety of moorland
management across Scotland, from Aberdeenshire to Shetland. “However
Mar’s efforts have been outstanding. The
estate has successfully integrated game and deer management interests with
conservation, commercial forestry and natural woodland regeneration and is a
worthy winner of this year’s award.”
Estate owner Mark Nicolson was presented with a framed special edition print kindly donated by
artist Colin Woolf at the 2015 Scottish Game Fair. The print is taken from a
commissioned watercolour portrait of a golden plover.
The Golden Plover Award was founded in 2013 to
celebrate and promote the very best of integrated upland management in
Scotland, and this year’s applicants have been asked to demonstrate an
engagement with peatland conservation. Savills have again played a key role in
supporting the award, which has received praise and backing from a range of
bodies and organisations involved in land management.
The judges carried out site visits and
interviews with the land managers to identify this year’s winner. Previous Golden Plover Award winners have been
Edinglassie Estate (Donside) in 2013 and Finzean Estate (Deeside) in 2014.
For
information about the Golden Plover Award in 2016, which will be presented at
next year’s Scottish Game Fair, please email info@heathertrust.co.uk or
visit the Golden Plover
Award website at www.goldenploveraward.co.uk
